Abstract

Prof Laura J. Shepherd in conversation with Dr Maria Martin de Almagro

This event is sponsored by the Centre for Gender Studies and the Centre of Governance and Human Rights

The United Nations is an organization founded at least in part on hope: hope for a post-war future offering security, human rights, justice, “social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” Laura Shepherd’s book documents some of the ways in which the UN engages with peacebuilding as a practice of hope, under the auspices of the UN Peacebuilding Commission that was created in 2005. Currently, the organization is involved in reconstruction and peacebuilding activities in six countries. Yet, a 2010 review by permanent representatives to the United Nations found that the hopes of the UN peacebuilding architecture have not materialised. This book engages with the work that gender is doing conceptually to organize the way that peacebuilding is defined, enacted, and resourced, as well as exploring the ways in which women, gender, and civil society are constructed in UN peacebuilding discourse.

Laura J. Shepherd is a Professor of International Relations at Sydney University. Laura is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security in London, UK. Laura’s research focuses on gender politics, international relations and critical security studies. Her primary research focuses on the United Nations Security Council’s ‘Women, Peace and Security’ agenda. She has written extensively on the formulation of UNSCR1325 and subsequent Women, Peace and Security resolutions. Laura is particularly interested in post-structural accounts of gender and security; much of her work investigates concepts and performances of authority, legitimacy and power through these theoretical frameworks. She also has strong interests in pedagogy and popular culture.

Maria Martin de Almagro is a Marie Curie Fellow at POLIS and a College Research Associate at Emmanuel.  Drawing on post structural accounts of gender, IR and security, she examines how intervening organizations interact with the national and sub-national actors working on violent conflict and peaceful cooperation.  Maria has written extensively on the advocacy around, and implementation of, the Women, Peace and Security agenda at global, national, and local levels in post-conflict contexts.

This talk will be followed by a light reception.